3. Ju Seong (John) Lee
– An Ethnographic Research on a Novice English Teacher with a Ph.D. Degree for the First Years in a Korean EFL Context: Bridging the Gap between Unrealistic Expectations and Reality

1. Hee Jun Choi and Octavia Mantik
The Relationships between English Language Acquisition of Young Children in a Korean Private Kindergarten and Their Gender, Teacher–Student Relationship, Temperament, and Intrinsic Motivation

2. Ienneke Indra Dewi, Irfan Rifai, and Djuria Suprato
Free online high – stake English test exercises: The evaluation, the learning,
the teaching, and the model

Second language vocabulary acquisition is one of the most difficult and daunting tasks a language learner has to face. The last 30 years has seen an emergence in the importance of language learning strategies in language learning in general and, by extension, vocabulary acquisition. This dissertation assesses which vocabulary learning strategies learners use and how helpful they believe them to be among three different contexts in Japan.

The current study investigated how an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) and two Home Room Teachers (HRTs) co-constructed meaning with beginner 6-8 year old learners during whole-class picture book reading sections of EFL lessons in a Japanese elementary school. The study was qualitative, involving analysis of transcripts made from video and audio recordings, which were cross-referenced with the researcher’s reflective log.

Teaching (CLT) in Albanian primary and secondary state schools, Albanian teachers, among others, are officially required to use communication-based textbooks in their classes. Authorities in a growing number of countries that are seeking to improve and westernise their educational systems are also using communication-based textbooks as agents of change. Behind these actions, there is the commonly held belief that textbooks can be used to support teacher learning as they provide a
visible framework teachers can follow.

Described as one of the best predictors of L2 achievement Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA) is a complex affective factor that has been well documented in EFL literature, yet the methods employed to investigate the phenomena have been largely constrained to surveys and traditional qualitative methods, such as diaries and interviews leaving gaps in our understanding of how it manifests itself in the student’s nonverbal behavior in real time. In addition to investigating FLA in relation to performance, this study is the first to analyze nonverbal behavior in an Asian context by adapting methods first introduced by Gregersen (2005). Though findings show a negative relationship using Spearman’s correlation ( = -.8, p<0.05, N=8) in comparing the FLA to speaking exam scores, this study was unable to demonstrate results consistent with Gregersen’s (2005) findings. The implications of this study draw attention to the role pedagogy in design and delivery of speaking exams.

This study discusses the roles of Native English Speaking Teachers (NESTs) in contemporary Japanese society through existing literature, and the results from questionnaires. Ever since the largest wave of NESTs started to work in Japanese public secondary schools in 1987 their roles have never been satisfactorily specified. NESTs are officially employed to offer students opportunity to improve their communicative ability. However, their roles are shaped by complex professional and societal factors.

This study discusses the roles of Native English Speaking Teachers (NESTs) in contemporary Japanese society through existing literature, and the results from questionnaires. Ever since the largest wave of NESTs started to work in Japanese public secondary schools in 1987 their roles have never been satisfactorily specified. NESTs are officially employed to offer students opportunity to improve their communicative ability. However, their roles are shaped by complex professional and societal factors.

The aim of the book, 11 chapters based on Lena Heine’s PhD thesis, is to investigate how learners mentally deal with content-focused activities in a foreign language by using the concept of problem solving tasks for which subjects do not have any immediate solutions.

Phil Benson’s Teaching and Researching Autonomy (Second Edition) is a fully revised and updated follow-up to his widely read 2001 first edition, which proved to be an invaluable tool to introducing language teachers and learners to the concept of autonomous learning.

Elizabeth Walter & Kate Woodford. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Pp. 1-126 Reviewed by Esmaeel Hamidi The Islamic Azad University, Science and Research Branch Tehran, Iran Collocations Extra is one of the recent volumes of work within the field of vocabulary instruction that aims at developing language learners’ competence of collocations. The book, primarily published […]

Thomas S. C. Farrell and Leketi Makalela (Eds). Virginia: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc., 2009. Pp. viii + 124. Reviewed by Iris F. Levitis Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research Rostock, Germany Of interest to English teachers, preservice teachers, and TESOL students and professionals, Language Teacher Research in Africa brings together […]

Alderson, Charles J. Great Britain: Continuum, 2006. Pp. xii + 284. Reviewed by Deepti Gupta Panjab University Chandigarh, India This volume is mainly an account of the DIALANG project. Its description of the project is very thorough and, in places, quite critical and objective. The reader gets acquainted with the project while getting updated on […]

This research investigated preservice EFL teachers’ beliefs about their roles as English teachers in Japan. Objectives were three-fold: (a) to elucidate preservice EFL teachers’ beliefs regarding professional identity through a metaphor analysis in three research phases (i.e., pre-, mid-, and post-practicum phases), (b) to explore preservice EFL teachers’ underlying beliefs hidden behind metaphors, particularly regarding professional identity in the three research phases, and thereby (c) to examine preservice EFL teachers’ professional identity formation observed during the term of the investigation.

Much previous research has shown beliefs to be resistant to change. Furthermore, when exposed to conflicting information, studies have also shown that people are likely to use it selectively to reinforce existing beliefs, the so-called biased assimilation effect.

This paper uses one case study at a Saudi Arabian university to illustrate the effects of competing Discourses on the identities of English language teachers in this context. Through an unpacking of their language teaching narratives, the notion of â€˜globalâ€™ English language teaching emerges as a way of potentially resolving these conflicting identities/Discourses.

Research has shown that teachers’ beliefs about language teaching are shaped by a myriad factors, among them, their own experiences as language learners, their pedagogical training, and the contexts in which they work (Borg, 2003; Fang, 1996; Freeman, 2002; Lortie, 1975). How their beliefs influence their practice has also been studied, and it has been found that whether teachers consistently put these beliefs into instructional practice varies considerably. For example, while some research on reading and literacy instruction has demonstrated a clear relationship between teachers’ theoretical orientations and what they do in their classes, other research has found this relationship to be weak, with teachers tending towards inconsistency; in other words, not doing what they believed was appropriate (Fang, 1996).

In Asia, the dominance of English as a foreign or second language has greatly contributed to the prevalence of Standard English and Native English Speaking Teachers (NESTs). Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan have been officially recruiting NESTs to introduce ‘authentic’ Standard English to their citizens. However, as globalisation continues throughout the world, the genres featuring native speaker norms have been challenged for failure to equip English learners with English as an International Language (EIL) or World Englishes (WEs) competence to communicate with other non-native English speakers from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds in international settings.

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Second language vocabulary acquisition is one of the most difficult and daunting tasks a language learner has to face. The last 30 years has seen an emergence in the importance of language learning strategies